These caramel pecan oatmeal cookies are thick and chewy, with rich flavor from the caramel bits and excellent crunch from the chopped pecans.
I never really grew up eating oatmeal cookies. Honestly, I don’t remember my mom ever making any cookies other that sugar cookies or chocolate chip before I was a teenager. I’m sure it happened, maybe my childhood palette refused them and entirely blocked the memory haha. Who knows.
These days I love thinking up new and fun cookie recipes. I am a person who enjoys nutty things. Put nuts in brownies, on sundaes, in cookies, in meals. Nothing beats the flavor and crunch. I also do love a good oatmeal cookie, they are usually thick and chewy which is my preferred cookie texture. I had found some salted caramel baking chips at the store and wasn’t sure how to use them.
One day as I organized my baking bin, these ingredients all just popped out at me, and caramel pecan oatmeal cookies were born. At first I thought of maybe adding chocolate too, like a chocolate turtle but I thought that these would be great as is. I was right.
They are a little bit like an oatmeal scotchie but definitely different. I actually wasn’t sure what the big difference between caramel and butterscotch was. I knew they were similar but also identical. Butterscotch isn’t a top favorite of mine, (I do love my Dark Chocolate Butterscotch Cookies) but who doesn’t love caramel? It turns out butterscotch is made with brown sugar and caramel is made with white sugar. Now you know!
These caramel pecan oatmeal cookies are quick and easy though. You don’t need to chill the dough, and they don’t take too long to bake! Sometimes chilling dough is fine (and I did test these with the dough chilled and it honestly made no discernable difference) but most of the time when that cookie urge hits.. you want that cookie now! So enjoy these whenever the cookie craving strikes!
Caramel Pecan Oatmeal Cookies Key Ingredients
- Caramel Chips – I used caramel chips like these, which are like chocolate chips made of caramel. They aren’t really chewy like a caramel candy is though. They do make little caramel bits for baking that you could most likely substitute, however I have not tested them.
- Quick Oats – I didn’t want the oat texture to overtake this recipe, so I chose quick oats instead of rolled oats. If you’d like them to be a little more oat forward, swap for rolled oats.
- Pecans – I used chopped pecans, however if you are out or don’t care for them walnuts are a very easy substitute that won’t dramatically change the flavor of the cookies.
Ingredients
- ½ cup Unsalted butter softened
- 150 g Dark brown sugar ¾ cup
- 50 g Granulated sugar ¼ cup
- 1 large Egg + 1 Yolk room temperature
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- ½ tsp Baking soda
- ½ tsp Baking powder
- ¾ tsp Salt
- 150 g AP Flour 1¼ cup
- 80 g Quick Oats 1 cup
- ½ tsp Cinnamon
- 1 cup Chopped pecans
- ¾ cup Salted Caramel baking chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Cream together sugars and butter in stand mixer or with hand mixer. Mixture will probably be more gritty than creamy.
- Add in egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda.
- Add flour mixture into stand mixer and slowly mix in, do not overmix.
- Add in oats, mixing in slowly but until fully mixed into dough
- Add in caramel chips and pecans, mix in by hand with a spatula.
- Scoop cookies onto a parchment lined baking sheet. For smaller cookies use a 1 tbsp scoop, for larger cookies use a 1.5-3 tbsp scoop.
- Bake cookies on center rack for 11-15 minutes. Smaller cookies will be closer to 11/12 minutes and larger will be about 14-15 minutes. If dough has been chilled the cook time will be closer to 14 minutes. Cookies are done when set but still soft. Let cookies rest on baking sheet for 60-90 seconds before removing to a wire rack for cooling. Cookies will be very soft but firm up as they cool.
Pingback:Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies › Bread Baking Babe